The Dork of Windsor

Comments Off on The Dork of Windsor04 January 2018

I’d like my loyal reader to show a little sympathy with Windsor Council leader Simon Dudley (Con) who is concerned about the “epidemic of rough sleeping and vagrancy” in the town. Indeed, Mr Dudley has instructed Berkshire police to “focus on dealing with this before the royal wedding”. In other words, get these wretched people off the streets and bus shelters before Prince Harry and Meghan Markle get married across the road.”The whole situation,” added Mr Dudley, “presents a beautiful town in a sadly unfavourable light.” He’s not kidding there, but not in the way I suggest he means.

This charming man’s words cannot be misinterpreted. What he says and means is that having homeless people living in bus shelters and shop doorways in Windsor looks very bad for Windsor and that they must be removed before the royal wedding. “These ghastly, scruffy people, some of whom may not have washed for a day or more, should move somewhere else. Obviously, they choose to live in bus shelters and we can’t be having that, especially if Harry and Meghan are being chauffeured to their modest ceremony just across the road,” he didn’t add. “It makes us look ever so bad. If we carry on like this we will have branches of Greggs and Poundstretcher opening up nearby. Anyway, pour me another Moet and Chandon.”

Whilst I find it difficult to justify the crazy amounts of public money which will be spent on the wedding, or the overwhelming media coverage we can also expect, I long ago concluded that I was fighting a losing battle trying to explain my quiet republicanism. As Dennis Skinner said, most people do like the royal family and I have other issues to believe in that are far more important. And anyway, in such a wealthy country, we can probably afford to fund a lavish royal wedding as well as work to end forever the blight of homelessness. Sadly, our politicians only seem to have the political will for the royal wedding bit. This is unacceptable and this is why Simon Dudley’s comments are so wide of the mark.

I am not sure that Prince Harry or his wife to be will be over-impressed with the council leader’s comments. After all, Harry and his mother before him have always shown great compassion for people in difficult situations, indeed impossible situations like homelessness. In fact, just a year ago Harry was involved in London with a homeless project and his brother Prince William once slept rough in order to draw attention to the scandal of homelessness. In fact, Princess Diana was a strong supporter of the Passage charity in London. I am certain that the young royals want to end homelessness in a very different way than the one suggested by the local council leader.

I repeat: we can do both things. We can maintain our royal family if that is what the people want and we can end homelessness if that is what the people want. Perhaps this unsavoury incident has accentuated the gross inequalities we face in Britain and, optimistically, it could be the catalyst for lasting change. And if I was a betting man, my money would be on Harry leading the fight to end homelessness forever. He will surely be cringing at the comments of one Simon Dudley.